Due to the record-breaking success of The Lord of the Rings movie franchise, Hollywood hot shots seemed to think it was a brilliant idea to split a relatively short children's book, The Hobbit, a prequel to LOTR, into three rather lengthy films. The first in the series,The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was the fourth highest grossing film of 2012, so to all of us complainers about splitting the book into three movies ... well, they're laughing at us all the way to the bank. The second film, The Desolation of Smaug, is coming out December 13, and fans of the series get to enjoy a newly released trailer.

The two-minute trailer brings us right back to Middle-earth, with lots of action, creepy creatures, wide, epic landscapes, and lots of shots of a group walking. But still, you can't help but think that author J.R.R. Tolkien might be grumbling in his grave a little bit -- and not just about that whole frames per second controversy that surrounded the first film's release.

Here is the trailer because that's the reason you're here, isn't it?

Most likely a few things will immediately come to mind: 1) The film looks stunning and gorgeous. 2) Hey, there's Legolas. Wait, what is he doing in The Hobbit? 3) OMG KATE AUSTEN.

And after watching Star Trek Into Darkness a couple weeks ago, I would have loooooved to hear Smaug the dragon, aka Benedict Cumberbatch, who has an extremely sexy voice, say something. C'mon, not even a polite, "You have nice manners for a thief and a liar"?

In addition to Orlando Bloom and Evangeline Lilly (whose character, Tauriel, never appears in the book) as elves, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel and Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins will reportedly make appearances too.

I get that LOTR fans will be stoked to see stars from the original franchise, but it feels like the producers and director Peter Jacksondon't have enough faith in the original Hobbit alone. It's as if Peter can't let the original trilogy go, which I totally understand, but there's no need to inundate the source material with these kinds of cameos and new characters.

Tolkein's tale about Bilbo and the dwarfs taking back Erebor from a ridiculously large yet articulate and rich dragon and then fighting in the Battle of Five Armies should be enough of a story to stand on its own (and two movies would have more than sufficed). Creating new characters and bringing in old ones just to fill up time and weren't in the original book takes away what made LOTR so amazing in the first place. Middle-earth was so new, exciting, beautiful, fresh -- give fans some credit that we'll see the movie for that, not because Orlando Bloom's in it.

Oh but who cares. I'm seeing it anyway.

What do you think of the new The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug trailer?